Ho, ho, ho, even a junk foodie will like Green Giant's latest

Published 12:00 am, Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Bonnie: Eat a rainbow every day, we dietitians like to say, referring to the wisdom of eating a wide variety of colorful, nutritious fruits and veggies. That rainbow concept is behind this new line of Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers Healthy Colors vegetable blends.

Each of the four varieties contains a colorful blend of three or four vegetables and is an excellent source of antioxidant vitamins A and C. The Farmer's Blend also contains dried fruit, specifically cranberries.

These new Steamers Blends are also the first to feature a new cook sensor that shows the word "Done" once the vegetables are steamed to perfection, taking the guesswork out of the microwave cooking time of 5-8 minutes. Great idea, mediocre execution -- as the "Done" notation wasn't bright or big enough to see through the window of my microwave.

That means standing by your microwave the first time you cook Valley Fresh Steamers to know the optimal time, at least until Green Giant fixes this.

Carolyn: Colorful vegetables are supposed to have a lot of nutrients. They're good for another reason: They look attractive, making junk foodies like me more likely to give them a try. Do the first few bites of these new Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers Healthy Colors make you want to keep eating? is the question.

A big "yes" in the case of the Market Blend, with its yellow bell pepper strips and zucchini in an olive oil sauce that tasted pleasantly lemony (though I see no lemon in the ingredients). I also liked the yellow carrots and olive oil sauce in the Nature's Blend.

Although equally good-looking, the ingredients and taste of the other two are more ordinary and not worth the price premium over non-Healthy Colors frozen veggie blends jazzed up, if you like, with the butter, olive oil or dried cranberries used in these.

Morningstar Farms Three-Bean Chili. $4.29 per 14.5-ounce container.

Bonnie: Being a from-scratch and not a frozen-food eater, my expectations weren't high for this meatless chili made with Morningstar Farms Griller's Crumbles plus three beans (cannellini, kidney and black), onions and peppers.

The single-serve-looking bowl purports to serve two. But if you eat the whole thing, the way most people would, you would be consuming 270 calories, 4 grams total fat (none of which is saturated), a fabulous 16 grams fiber, 20 grams protein and a hefty (read: too much) 800 milligrams of sodium.

This could easily feed two served over brown rice. (I used some frozen rice from Village Harvest that easily heats up in the microwave in just 45 seconds.) And surprisingly, it is tasty enough to recommend to those looking for a nonmeat chili from the freezer case.

Carolyn: Boca made a frozen chili like this in 2005 that rightly disappeared -- its beans were mushy; its onions almost raw; and its sauce too bland. But six years later, Morningstar Farms has done this same idea right.

With all its beans, thick tomato base and bits of hamburger-like Griller's Crumbles, this is the rare hearty, satisfying meal that you don't have to feel guilty about eating even if you do eat the whole bowl.

In taste and texture, it actually reminded me quite a bit of the Kettle Cuisine Three-Bean Chili that Bonnie and I reviewed back in fall 2009 and both liked -- although that product is gluten-free and contains no fake meat. But Morningstar Farms' version is significantly larger and so a better value.

Bonnie: My first experience with Dove was love. No longer. These new candies contain not only artificial flavors but, in these two new Dark Chocolate and Raspberry offerings, artificial colors, too. I try to avoid both. If you don't mind those chemicals, you might enjoy these, as they do melt in your mouth.

An entire bar of either the Dark Chocolate and Raspberry or the Milk Chocolate and White Chocolate will set you back 460 calories and 28 grams of fat (of which a whopping 18 are saturated, or 90 percent of the recommended daily limit), though the label says one big bar serves two. Five of the Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Promises deliver a more reasonable 210 calories, 13 grams fat (of which 8 are saturated, or 40 percent of the recommended daily limit).

That's my cynical explanation for the debut of these two new Dove chocolates swirled with raspberry or white chocolate. The addition of white chocolate (which, as Bonnie has told me many times, is not really chocolate) just makes the wimpy milk chocolate blander, although the tiger-stripe look is attractive.

The raspberry-dark chocolate combination is better, as Dove seems to realize; it's also available as Promises.

I continue to be charmed by Dove's use of the inside of the Promises wrappers to convey messages, but I wish it would drop the bogus compliments (How does Dove know that my smile lights up a room?) in favor of something really useful, like how long you'll have to dust the house to burn off the calories from eating one of these (at least 15 minutes, if you want to know).

Bonnie Tandy Leblang is a registered dietitian with an interactive site, www.biteofthebest.com, about products she recommends. Follow her on Twitter: BonnieBOTB. Carolyn Wyman is a junk-food fanatic and author of "The Great Philly Cheesesteak Book," Running Press. Each week, they critique new food items. &Copy; 2011, Universal Uclick.